All's Loud on The Western Front
by HedgieX
Summary: When Tom told Nicki her first Waterloo Road school trip would also be her last, he was joking. Nobody could have guessed what would happen on a window ledge in France, and nobody could have predicted how much the event would hurt those left behind. Possibly Tom/Nicki depending on how it 'crinkles out', and definitely a Nicki/Scout relationship. For Lauren and Beth.
1. Chapter 1

All's Loud on the Western Front | Chapter One

_For Lauren and Beth_

Tom was just pouring Nicki another mug of tea when they heard the scream. Nicki had spent many years in the army, and yet she'd never become immune to screaming, never been able to keep up the emotional detachment like everyone else could. It set her heart on edge.

Strictly speaking, Michael had told them not to drink too much whilst they were here – responsibility and all that. Nicki knew for a fact that Grantly was, at this moment, slumped at a bar stool downstairs with a whisky clasped in his bony fingers, but Tom had turned a blind eye so far, and as he was in charge Nicki followed suit.

It was the first time she'd been on a school trip with Waterloo Road. Tom had laughed when she'd agreed to go, "It'll be your first _and_ last time."

"Well, Mr Clarkson, it must be alright if you're still going," she'd said, and he'd hit her over the head with a pizza leaflet he'd happened to be holding. (Which said a lot about Tom, all in all, that he was holding a pizza leaflet. No, she was joking, he was– well, Tom was many things.)

They were sitting in Tom's bedroom sharing tea and biscuits now. The kids were getting ready for tea now, no doubt fighting over the shower or whose turn it was to charge their phone. Nicki was so tired, which she supposed came with the territory, lying awake worrying about the kids all night, and yet filled with something she hadn't felt in a while, a kind of adrenalin that came from truly enjoying herself, and seeing others truly enjoy themselves.

"What was–" Tom was already on his feet. He was wearing quite a tight white shirt, and she could see his chest shifting, _buh-bum buh-bum_. "I'll check the boys if you'll do the girls' floor?"

She met Scout on the stairs. "Miss, Miss, she's– you need to–"

"What's happened, Jodie?"

"She's–"

Her own heart was thudding like Tom's now. She'd never seen Scout speechless before. "Jodie, just calm down – you go downstairs and find Mr Clarkson, okay? What room am I going to?"

"Two hundred and twelve."

It was funny how she always thought of Scout as Scout, and yet called her Jodie. It was also funny how protective she felt of the girl, and how fond she'd become of her bolshiness and her determination to do well despite the odds. Perhaps by calling her 'Jodie' she was trying to ignore the emotional connection she felt towards her. With Nicki, it was always about hiding away her emotions.

The door of 212 was open. There were girls huddled around in the room, their faces filled with shock, as the faces of victims of bombings often were, unable to comprehend what was happening. She forced herself to put to one side the memories that flooded over her, the screaming of children with missing limbs, not long for this world.

"L–" Nicki meant to say 'Lorraine', but the word got caught somewhere in her throat, as Scout's words had.

"Miss," Imogen said, her voice hoarse, "She was saying something about everything going wrong, how she means nothing to anyone, and something about playing Monopoly, and then she just–"

"Okay," Nicki said. Her head was thudding along with her chest, her heartbeat in her skull. She was thinking_ shitshitshit_, and she was saying _okay_, because she had to. "Can everyone just go outside, please? Go back to your rooms. Everything's going to be okay."

Some of the girls took a couple of steps backwards, but most stayed, and she didn't blame them. It was hard to think when something like this happened, it was hard to hold yourself together, never mind hold everyone else together.

"Lorraine," she said, very softly, "Lorraine, I'm here now, Nicki."

Lorraine was sitting on the window ledge, her legs hanging over the edge, facing out into the warm French sky. They had such beautiful windows in this hotel, Nicki thought, the kind you always wished you had in Britain but realised you never would have because it was too damn cold to have windows that opened like doors. In Britain, people complained if the bus windows were open a little, "There's a draught." Why did it matter?

"Do you want to talk to me, Lorraine?" She took a couple of steps forwards, but didn't touch her colleague. "Imogen says you're upset about everything going wrong. What's gone wrong?"

She shook her head. She was obviously crying.

"I know things must seem really bad, but this really isn't going to help anyone, Lorraine. All the children are frightened."

"I'm sorry."

"It's okay, you've not done anything wrong." How the bloody hell did people manage when this was their career? To talk people down from the tops of buildings every day, to convince them there was a better way to deal with their problems? It made Nicki feel sick. "Do you think you could just come down from there, so we can talk about it? We can get Tom to make you a coffee, and then we can sort out whatever's happened."

And where the bloody hell had Tom got to? One of the girls was sniffling behind Nicki, as though proving the point that the children were frightened. Not really very helpful. Oh God, what was she supposed to do? She'd seen her friends on the brink of suicide before; her boss when she'd first joined the army, when he'd been unable to save a little girl who'd been shot in front of him. But Lorraine? She was so bubbly, so alive, it seemed like a horrible juxtaposition that she was considering death now.

"I can't."

"You can," Nicki said. There was probably a rule that you didn't argue with someone who was considering suicide. She should probably talk about something irrelevant and fluffy, like windows. No, not windows. "We had a good day today, didn't we? The kids loved the Eiffel tower, and tomorrow we're having croissants in that little café around the corner. It's so beautiful here, you can't want to leave this."

"You don't understand."

_ No, you're right there._ Part of her detested Lorraine at the moment, for being so bloody selfish, for doing this to the children. Part of her felt sick with the suggestion that a person could be so desperate that they literally couldn't cope any more. She wanted to hug her and slap her at the same time.

"Is it your boyfriend?"

Lorraine made a funny sound that may have been a laugh or a sob.

"Money problems?"

"No. I have plenty of that." She laughed again. "Plenty of money, and nothing to do with it. The root of all evil."

She was shuffling even further towards the edge of the ledge, towards emptiness. Nicki tried to calculate how high up they were. Lorraine would almost certainly die if she fell from here, or if not death then serious injury, crushed bones and blood everywhere, excruciating pain. Nicki wanted someone else to take control, she wanted to run away and be sick. Fat chance.

"I can't do this, Nicki."

Life, or death? Nicki climbed up beside her, put a hand on her arm. "It's not true that nobody cares about you, Lorraine, it's an absolute lie. I will do everything I can to help you, I promise; please, just come down."

Lorraine flinched like Nicki had burnt her. "I'm scared."

There were two shouts at once, one of 'Miss' from Scout and one of 'Nicki' from Tom, and they mingled together into a sort of "Mickisss" in Nicki's head. She wondered how it could possibly be raining when the sun was so warm, and then she realised it was tears on her face, not rain.

"Lorraine," Tom pleaded, running across the room through the crowds of children and looking up at the windowsill. Nicki hadn't realised how far up it was when she'd climbed up. She hadn't realised how close she was to the edge. "You need to come down, okay, this isn't going to help with anything at all, you aren't thinking about this."

"It's okay, Lorraine," Nicki said. How was her voice so soft when everything inside of her was screaming? "Take your time."

"There's too much time, too much time to realise how much you've fucked up your life."

"Lorraine, please–" she murmured. She could hear Tom behind her, shepherding the children out of the room, leaving Nicki to talk to Lorraine. Put the children first, _always._ Nicki just wanted to jump down and cover up Scout's eyes, she shouldn't have to see this.

"I'm sorry."

Lorraine pushed Nicki away from her. One of them fell backwards and one of them fell forwards, and suddenly the window ledge was empty, endless in its expanse of white, and to a chorus of children screaming they both fell down into darkness.

XxXxX


	2. Chapter 2

All's Loud on the Western Front | Chapter Two

**Thank you for all of the wonderful reviews. Particular thanks to **_**Never-Clip-My-Wings-x **_**(for her colourful hats and spontaneous reviewing, ha) and**_** CaleighWho (**_**read her Nicki&Scout story, which is called Getting to Know You, and is very feel-inducing). Even if you've only got time to write a sentence, please do, reviews make me incredibly happy and I always welcome ideas!**

**Apologies for the possibly less-than-perfect French in this chapter, I've tried to translate it in square brackets for anyone who's worse at French than me! x**

She was still conscious when Tom reached her. He could barely breathe, and not just because he'd run down several flights of stairs. She was splayed out across the tarmac, and when he looked up he could see Imogen peering down at him from the ledge. Even from here her tears were visible, her mouth moving as she explained something to the emergency services' operator. Luckily, Imogen could speak French as well as Tom and Nicki, maybe even better. Although it didn't feel lucky today. _Nicki_. The name made him feel sick.

"_Shit_."

Things really were bad when Chalky swore. He knelt down by Tom's side and pressed his fingers to the side of her neck, searching for a pulse. Her eyes fluttered a little, so weak, her life fading before his eyes.

"Did she–"

Tom nodded, "Imogen's already called an ambulance. Grantly's upstairs with the kids, but–"

"But what?"

"This isn't it," he whispered, "They both fell, Nicki and Lorraine. They were on the window ledge, Nicki was trying to stop– and–"

"Don't, Tom, hey, this isn't going to help," Chalky was visibly panicking. There were beads of sweat blooming on his forehead.

Tom knew he had to calm down, had to do everything he could to help before he fell apart, but– He looked down at the woman in front of him, watched her life spill out of her, scarlet ink all over the tarmac. He took her hand in his and bent his head to kiss her forehead.

"It's okay," he said, "You're going to be fine."

Lorraine managed a half-smile before she died.

XxXxX

Scout crouched next to Nicki. Her tears fell onto her teacher's face. She felt a kind of bereavement that was foreign to her; she'd never known such pain, such searing pain, like some of her had been torn out.

"Miss." She could barely get the words out; her throat was clogged up with fear. "Miss, just lie still, the ambulance is coming."

Why tell her to lie still? It wasn't like she could move. There was blood spilling out of her head, going all over the carpet.

"Keep talking to her, Jodie," Grantly told her sharply, like it was her fault Nicki had fallen. Maybe it was. She should have caught her; she'd just been stuck on the spot, frozen in time. _Useless._

"Miss, please."

"Sc– Scout," Nicki's voice was weaker than the bleat of a new born lamb. She seemed too weak to cry, she was just moaning. Scout realised Nicki had never called her 'Scout' before; more tears fell.

"Don't– don't cry."

"Sorry. It's okay, though, the ambulance is coming now, you'll be okay. My mum used to say 'it always looks worse than it is'."

Nicki half-smiled, then winced, "Tom?"

"He'll be back soon."

"Lorraine," she whispered, like she'd just remembered, "I didn't– poor thing. Nobody should be– so alone, it's– I'm sorry."

Scout stood up and discovered that her legs were quaking. She remembered going to a farm with her mum once and seeing the lambs with their mums, some of them just born, trembling and helpless. She went to the window and looked down; she could see Mr Clarkson and Mr Chalk bent over Lorraine, trying to stop the blood leaking everywhere.

It looked like she'd dyed her hair red. Although that wasn't really Lorraine's style; Scout could imagine her laughing at the suggestion. Lorraine had always been so in control, so unflappable. Scout supposed she should have thought of her as 'Miss Donegan', but somehow Lorraine was always Lorraine.

"Is the– is the ambulance there?"

Nicki sounded weaker still. _Lamb to the slaughter._ Scout wiped her eyes again. "Nearly, Miss. You're going to be okay."

"Lorraine?"

"Mr Clarkson is with her."

"Tom," she whispered, like she'd forgotten him in the short time since they'd discussed where he was last.

Scout wondered about the relationship between Miss Boston and Mr Clarkson, wondered if it was as complicated as her relationship with Miss Boston felt. How could you care so deeply about someone who was a relative stranger to you?

"Scout?" Nicki tried to raise her hand; her fingers only got a few centimetres from the floor. "Stay with me."

Scout crouched back down beside her, "I'm here, Miss."

"Come– to the hospital?"

"I'm not sure Mr Clarkson will let me."

"Tell him– tell him I–"

"I will, Miss." Scout couldn't see through her tears.

She knew Mr Budgen was crouched at Nicki's head, pressing his coat to the gash in her flesh; there was blood on his fingers, but no pool like with Lorraine. Scout could only hope that was a good sign. Mr Budgen was silent, Scout wondered if he was crying too – although it was hard to imagine Mr Budgen crying – or whether he was thinking about what he'd do if Maggie (another one she'd always think of with her forename) was this badly injured.

"You know what, Miss, I've never been to a French hospital before. I've been to English ones before, even a Scottish one, when my mum– when, you know, when she died. Never a French one, though. They might have nice French doctors to look after you, they might have moustaches."

"I think that's Germans," Grantly muttered.

"I'm sorry," Nicki whispered, "Your mum."

"I'll stay with you, if you want me to, Miss. I promise, I'll look after you, it'll all be okay." She knew she was babbling. It wasn't like Casualty and Holby City in real life; people didn't know that. It wasn't so easy to smile.

"The ambulance is here," Imogen shouted to them from the door. She sounded like she was crying too.

"Miss Donegan?" Grantly asked.

"No, she–" Imogen trailed off, "Mr Clarkson says– she's–"

Tom brushed past her in the doorway and fell down onto his knees at Nicki's side, taking the hand Scout wasn't holding in his. He looked as though he wanted to scoop her up and rock her in his arms; he was the colour of an elephant's tusks, with grey streaks under his eyes.

"Lorraine," she said.

He shook his head.

"Shit. _Shit_."

"It's not your fault, Miss."

"Comment s'appelle-t-elle?" the paramedic asked, wheeling a stretcher into the room and pushing past Tom in order to get to Nicki, "Qu'est-ce qui s'est passé?"

[What's her name? What happened?]

"Nicki," Tom said. He crawled around to Scout's side and laid one hand on Scout's knee whilst using the other to brush Nicki's hair from her face. She gave him the ghost of a smile. "Elle s'appelle Nicki. Elle est tombée. Elle–" He gave a half shrug, like his French had failed him. "Je ne sais pas. Aide."

[Her name is Nicki. She fell. She– I don't know. Help.]

Scout hated the barriers in language at that moment. She hated the fact that she could describe her school uniform and her last holiday in perfect detail, but had no idea how to ask these people to make sure Nicki didn't die. She didn't know much in that moment, but she knew Nicki _could not_ die.

She said the only thing she could think of that might possibly be of any use: "Sil vous plait."

[Please.]

The second paramedic (he didn't have a moustache, but he was reasonably nice-looking, Scout noted, somewhere in the back of her mind) stopped assessing Nicki and turned to smile at her. "I try," he said.

XxXxX


	3. Chapter 3

All's Loud on the Western Front | Chapter Three

**Thank you again for all of the lovely reviews! They mean a lot. This is your Easter update, so happy Easter, I hope you all have a nice time whatever you're doing x**

_**This chapter is a little less action-y and a little more reflective of everything that's happened to Nicki since Lorraine's suicide. Apologies if you prefer the action, but sometimes I get moaned at for not describing things enough (which is my old teachers' fault, I was always told off for describing things too much when I was little) so here we are.**_

There were many things about staying in a hospital that made Nicki feel helpless and vulnerable. The backless gowns (which were particularly horrible when you were on a mixed-gender ward), the food, the way there was always somebody screaming, keeping you awake at night.

She didn't understand much of what anyone said here; she felt like a little girl dropped in a foreign country and abandoned. Maybe this was what it had felt like to be an evacuee from Germany during Hitler's reign, the people who loved you thought they were doing the right thing protecting you, and yet you would have preferred to die with them.

By far the worst thing, though, was the fact that she had to be helped to the toilet. How could anything be more humiliating, hanging on until your body ached from holding it in, having to be helped down the ward so that everyone knew exactly where you were going, knowing the nurse was standing outside the cubicle whilst you relieved yourself. It made her skin crawl. Selfish, she knew, when people were dying, but she couldn't help it. She would never, ever tell another student they had to wait until the end of the lesson to go to the toilet again.

"You be released soon," the doctor had told her this morning. She was glad he knew a bit of English, because it felt as though her capacity for speaking French had been drained from her, along with all of her feelings. She was numb, unable to cry; that was dreadful too, like living in a nightmare.

Tom was sitting by her side now. Something else; the way nobody ever knew what to say in hospitals. They could ask how the person felt, they could tell a couple of stories to raise the person's spirits, but then what? It was so very public, like the entire ward was watching their conversation. And even if it had been private, then what did you say? Tom kept saying _I'm sorry_, over and over again, like that would make it better. It should be her saying sorry. And she did. But those words were empty,_ I'm sorry_, what did that really mean?

"Nicki?" he asked.

She forced herself up onto one elbow, and he automatically plumped up the pillows beneath her. He was so lovely with her, so lovely with everyone. Tears came quickly to her eyes without her wanting them to.

"Oh, Nicki."

"I'm sorry." Again.

"This isn't your fault. Nobody could ever say this was your fault," he said. He was quiet for a few seconds. "You did what so many people wouldn't ever have tried to do, you were so brave. And I know that's alright for me to say, because you'll still feel like shit, I know that, but you couldn't have done anything more."

All this week, it had been 'it'll be okay' and 'you'll be fine', he'd never mentioned the fact that she might not feel okay until now. Somehow it made her feel worse, even though she'd been waiting for someone to finally take the first step and let her pour out her feelings. "I could have fallen instead of her."

"You fell _as well_. Lorraine–"

First time he'd said her name, too.

"Lorraine was obviously really, really unhappy. And none of us knew that, of course we didn't, she'd hidden it from us."

"Someone should have realised."

"Yes, they should. Someone; how many people are there at Waterloo Road? Anyone could have noticed and done something, and nobody did. We're all to blame for that."

Her head ached. There was the constant pain, a bit like the buzz of a computer or the dripping of a tap in the background, something that was ceaseless inside of her, becoming part of her. Then there was the shots of agony whenever she moved, like someone was firing tiny metal bullets into her skull, and they were shattering, and some of them were also hitting her heart and piercing deep inside of her.

Did other people feel like this, so empty and yet so overwhelmingly full of anger and bitterness and pain? Was it just because she was an English teacher? Maybe if it had been Chalky here, he would have spent his time doing Sudoku rather than sniffling into a handkerchief. But she wouldn't wish this on him.

"Lorraine's body was flown back to the UK yesterday. I know Michael was with her parents when– well, and Tanya, and they asked him to make sure you were thanked for what you'd tried to do. When things get a bit easier, I'm sure they'll want to talk to you personally."

"Easier," she mumbled, to nobody.

"Everyone asks after you all the time," he continued, more lightly, his eyes still on hers. She could feel it, the way her face burned under his gaze, although she was looking away. "Chalky and Grantly; they didn't want to overwhelm you by coming, but they're delighted you're recovering so well."

How could anyone feel delighted at a time like this?

"Imogen and Connor always check how you are, and Kevin and Kacey, pretty much everyone really."

She could imagine them talking about her around the breakfast table. Were they eating croissants? It was always funny to think how things went on without you, when you weren't there. Had Lorraine considered that before she jumped? Had she thought about what she was leaving behind? How much it was going to tear Nicki apart to know she hadn't been able to save her?

She'd said "I'm sorry". It was like she thought those two little words would mean something to Nicki once she'd gone, like they'd heal the wounds. Tom seemed to think the same. It meant nothing.

"And Scout."

Nicki looked at him. "How is she?"

"She's doing okay."

Evidently she wasn't so weak that he didn't get the meaning of the glare she gave him.

"She's upset. Of course she's upset, she went through a lot. She went on that thing where you talk to someone on the internet, where the boxes with your faces pop up, and it's like having a conversation?"

"Skype."

"Yeah, she Skyped Maggie. I think it'll be better for her once she's back home, and things start to return to normality. And obviously when she's seen you. She keeps asking if she can come with me to see you, but I didn't think that would be the best idea. Unless you–"

"It's ruined the trip for them."

Tom smiled the sort of smile that teachers perfected over the years, the smile that Nicki was learning now. The one that meant 'inside I want to cry'. "They're young, they'll have other opportunities. I think it's more important that you think about getting better."

Why did she feel so angry towards Tom when he was only trying to help? She just wanted to hit him; she probably would hit him if she was strong enough. She didn't want to think about getting better, she wanted Lorraine back.

And Scout, she wanted to see her so much, to hold her. And yet she wasn't sure she wanted to see her ever again.

"I need the toilet, Tom."

"Oh, okay, do you want me to–"

"No," she said, "Just get a nurse."

The nurse helped her along the corridor to the bathroom. Nicki could hear her standing right outside the door, humming something. When she opened the cubicle door, the nurse gave her an enquiring look, but she just shook her head. It was pretty obvious that she'd just been sick, and it was even more obvious that she didn't want to talk about it.

That was a nice thing about being in a foreign country; nobody asked difficult questions, because it was too hard to work out how to translate what you wanted to say. Maybe that was why Tom angered her, because he did ask those questions. She always pushed away the people she cared most for. Welcome to the lonely world of Nicki Boston.

When she got back to bed, Tom had gone. The nurse brought her a meal of some description, and she stirred it around with her knife until it looked suitably half-eaten, before curling up and sleeping. Lorraine was screaming, Scout was screaming. Tears were running silently down Tom's cheek, and questions were flying out of his mouth, jumbled up. She didn't even get any peace in her dreams.

XxXxX


	4. Chapter 4

All's Loud on the Western Front | Chapter Four

Grantly pounced on Scout as she entered the PRU half an hour after morning lessons had begun. She was shaken from her daydreams by his nose, which was a couple of inches from hers.

"And what is your excuse this time, Miss Allen?"

"Sorry, Sir."

"Let me guess. You got lost on your way back from Planet Zog, where you were fighting on the front line in purple dungarees for the Zogeans' right to emigrate freely into the United Kingdom?"

"I slept in, Sir. Maggie forgot to wake me up."

"I think you'll find it's Mrs Budgen to you," he shouted. She'd never realised before how loud and booming his voice was in a confined space, or how many hairs it was possible to have growing in one nostril. "And I know for a fact that _Mrs Budgen_ woke you up early this morning, because I made extra specially sure of it."

"He promised her an extra five minutes in the bath if she woke her up early," Rhiannon told the occupants of the PRU gleefully, "Will that involve rubber ducks, by any chance, Mr Budgen?"

Grantly's skin immediately glowed brighter than a radish's outer coating, and stepped away from Scout to begin ranting at Rhiannon, so Scout sloped to her desk and sat down, pulling her books out of her bag on autopilot. Harley had spilt orange juice on her maths textbook yesterday, and some of the text had been dissolved completely before she'd rescued it.

Typically, it was the section of the unit she struggled on most that had been destroyed, and although it was such a small thing – Maggie, or _Mrs Budgen_, had already promised to get her a new one at the weekend – it had felt massive to Scout, her anger bubbling up inside of her so that she had to restrain herself from hitting Harley.

She'd stormed away to her bedroom without having any jelly, which she'd later regretted because she was starving all night, and been unable to stop herself from crying into her pillow. She'd had to lie to Rhiannon that she'd had an allergic reaction to her moisturiser to explain away her puffy eyes.

She felt so isolated at the moment, unable to trust anyone, never far away from snapping at someone, or from feeling tears well up in her eyes.

"Anyway, Miss Allen, since you apparently feel that you already know enough about English to justify skiving half of my lesson, perhaps you can help us all with something." Grantly said, sitting back down at the desk at the front of the room and crossing one leg over the other so that his trousers rose up. His socks were brighter than his cheeks. "Tell me about the feelings George experiences after killing Lennie in _Of Mice and Men_."

"I haven't finished reading it yet, Sir."

"Why ever not? Surely, if you're missing my lesson, you should at least have had the courtesy to be ahead with your work?"

"I was doing Maths all last night, Sir. I've got an exam in a few weeks, and there's loads of stuff I don't get."

"As glad as I am that you're actually doing any work at all, Jodie, you have an English exam the week after your Maths one, and given that you haven't even finished reading the book yet, I think it's fair to say that English should be a priority."

Scout busied herself flipping through the pages of _Of Mice and Men_, her anger quick to rise up again. She'd read almost half of the book so far, which was more than anyone else in the class would have bothered with; she doubted Rhiannon had even opened the front cover.

"Do you think Miss Boston would be impressed if she saw how little you were doing? How disappointed will she be when she comes back and sees that you've returned to your lazy old ways?"

She was on her feet before she'd realised what was happening, the anger exploding like popping candy in her throat and making her stomach gurgle. How dare he suggest that she was letting Nicki down? How dare he sit there in Nicki's seat with his feet on Nicki's desk and call pretend Nicki's lessons were his own?

She was not lazy. She'd been a little demotivated in the past, but now she had hope for the future, hope that Nicki had given her. Every other teacher had brushed her aside as a lost cause, but Nicki had made time to consider her as a real person with feelings, and to show her how much she could achieve if only she tried. And now Nicki was gone and she was struggling, wading through Maths and English and the sciences and all of her other lessons, feeling as though she was back at square one and everything thought she was a lost cause again.

"Sit down, Jodie."

"No," she yelled at him, shoving her books back in her bag and slinging it over her shoulder, "You can stuff your bloody mice and men, you're a rubbish teacher and you have no idea what it's like to be me."

"Jodie, don't you–"

She'd already left the PRU, slamming the door behind her and running along the corridor until she stumbled over a pen lid that had been discarded and sat down on the floor outside the hall, banging her head repeatedly against the wall.

"_There are enough words in the world to get your point across without turning to swearing_," Nicki had told Scout once, after she'd argued with Rhiannon and ended up in the cooler for calling her something quite offensive. Grantly was right, Nicki would be disappointed in her.

"Scout?"

She started crying. Over the years she'd become accustomed to holding her tears inside, but now she couldn't, she had to get out all of the emotion clogging up her insides. It was just the way Tom said 'Scout', the first kind word anyone had addressed her with all week, the only person who seemed to give a damn about her now that Nicki wasn't here.

Tom crouched down beside her, and she cried into his side, taking in the gentle smell of washing powder on his shirt.

He put his hand on her shoulder, "What's wrong? Is it about Nicki?"

She liked that he didn't pretend to call her Miss Boston, like anyone else would have done. She liked that she didn't have to explain how she was feeling, because he'd been there too. She nodded.

"I know, it's hard."

"I–" she sniffed, wiping her nose on the back of her sleeve, feeling like a little girl again, "I miss her, Sir."

"So do I," he said. Neither of them said anything for a moment. "You've got so much on your plate, with all these exams; it must be really hard to have different teachers for your lessons."

"Mr Budgen said– he said she'd be disappointed in me."

"Well, he doesn't know her very well at all then, does he?" Tom asked softly, producing an unused tissue from his back pocket and pressing it into her hand.

She saw Tom as almost a father figure, someone that had always been constant in her life when everything else was changing. She couldn't imagine Waterloo Road without Tom, but then she hadn't been able to imagine it without Nicki either, and maybe that was the problem. It seemed so empty.

"Have you seen her?"

"No. No, she didn't want me to go round," he said. His eyes were more blue than usual. "But she texted me, she said she's doing okay. And I do know that it doesn't matter if she's here or not, she still cares about you, and she wants you to do well, because you deserve to do well."

"Does she blame herself, Sir, for Miss Donegan?"

"Yeah. I think she does."

"It wasn't her fault."

"I know, but I don't think it's easy for her to see that, at the moment."

Tom shifted his arm from around her and stood back up, then held out a hand to help Scout to her feet. She took it, and he gave her a lopsided smile, which looked somehow as though he wasn't smiling at all.

"I think guilt is a difficult thing. It can blind you. Grief, too."

"She'll be alright, Sir."

"Yeah," he said, "She will. Let's go and talk to Mr Budgen about you being a disappointment, then, hey? I might just have to give him a bit of a telling off."

XxXxX


	5. Chapter 5

**Thanks to everyone who's read this so far, I'm sorry it's taken me so long to update. I won't see Waterloo Road on Thursday because it's my prom (which had better be good, that's all I'm saying) so I thought I'd write a chapter of this instead. Enjoy! x**

**All's Loud on the Western Front | Chapter Five**

"I thought she wanted to see me."

"She does, love," Tom said, "She does."

Scout and Tom were sitting on the sofa in Nicki's living room. Tom kept crossing one leg over the other and then uncrossing it, needing to do something to occupy himself; every few minutes, he stood up and paced across the room to the bottom of the staircase, where he'd shout up to her to check if she was coming down yet.

Tom had made all three of them coffees (Scout didn't like coffee, but she hadn't wanted to say so) when they'd arrived. He'd said Nicki just needed a few minutes to get ready, but they'd been sitting here for nearly half an hour now, and Scout began to wonder how exactly it could take this long. What was she doing, curling each individual hair? Scout had never seen Nicki with her hair curled, although she thought it would probably look beautiful; Nicki had such sleek, soft hair.

"Do you think we should just go, Sir?" Scout asked, putting her mug on the coffee table. She'd felt the warmth seep out of the coffee and into her fingers as she'd balanced the mug on her knee; now the drink was untouched and cold. "Maybe she feels ill or something, and she just isn't in the mood to see us."

"I think we should give her a few more minutes."

It was strange, being inside a teacher's house. Obviously she'd been inside Tom's home before with Josh, but that had been different; Tom, as well as a father figure, was a friend, the teacher-student barrier hadn't ever mattered. Scout hadn't imagined that Nicki's house would look like this.

She stood up and went to the mantelpiece, where she trailed her fingers over the engravings in the ivory beam of wood, examining each photograph. There was a beautiful silver clock with Roman numerals in the centre of the mantelpiece, and around it photos stood in silver frames; there was a couple who were presumably Nicki's mum and dad, then some children who could have been nieces and nephews, or godchildren.

There was one of a young girl with sleek, soft hair like Nicki's, her body sleek too, accentuated by a beautiful pale pink dress decorated with roses, and a cream belt around her waist, pulling everything in. She was sitting on a wall outside a cottage (Scout spotted a cow in the distance; it was like those holiday homes she'd dreamt of staying in with her mum, when she'd been too little to understand these things didn't come cheap), her feet bare, her cheeks glistening with sunshine and happiness.

"I think that's Nicki," Tom said, having come to stand behind her.

"She was beautiful."

"She was rather, wasn't she? Still beautiful now, too."

Scout looked towards Tom, uncertain whether he was joking. His blue eyes were on the photograph and he looked serious.

"Do you like her, Sir? I mean, don't worry, I wouldn't tell anyone, I just w–"

"I do like her," he said softly, taking the frame down from the mantelpiece and running a finger across the glass, "I think this has made me see that I like her. I think I tried to hide it, but I couldn't pretend any more when she got hurt."

"Does she like you?"

"I doubt it. If anything was going to happen between us– well, it would have to be when she was better again. I suppose we'll just have to see what happens. Maybe we're better off as just friends."

"Your secret's safe with me, Sir."

Tom smiled and replaced the photo frame. "You stay down here for a minute, Scout. I'm just going to go up and check on her, I'll be right back."

Scout took the mugs into the kitchen (Tom hadn't been able to finish his coffee, either) and rinsed them out in the sink. Everything in here was organised too; she opened the top drawer beneath the hob and ran her fingers over the silver cutlery. She wondered how Nicki could afford all of this stuff, or perhaps it had been handed down from her parents and she just took good care of it.

Her fruit bowl was filled with apples, her jars of coffee and tea bags were lined up neatly on the windowledge. Scout hated thinking about that word, 'windowledge'. Of course this one was on the ground floor and couldn't really do any damage, but that didn't prevent things from spinning around in her head, images of Lorraine and Nicki scuffling on the windowledge, of them falling, and leaving only whiteness.

There was a little glass bowl of dolly mixtures on the sideboard, just like the one on Nicki's desk at Waterloo Road. Scout took one of the chocolate ones; she knew Nicki liked to save all of the yellow and pink squares until last. There hadn't been any dolly mixtures there for a while now, because Grantly had finished them off and replaced them with aniseeds, which he refused to share with the students. Every day the pain of not seeing Nicki smile in the corridors dug a little bit deeper.

Tom still hadn't come back down, so Scout crept to the bottom of the stairs. She could hear nothing, only the gentle hum of the house. She went upstairs cautiously, stopping every few steps to listen, to examine the photos on the walls of the staircase too; a family shot with a castle in the background, and a photo of Nicki and some of the kids mucking around at the Christmas party last year, colourful party hats skewwhiff on their heads. Scout felt warm to see a photograph of herself in Nicki's house, just because she always wondered if teachers really cared or if they just forgot at the end of the day.

The landing creaked and Scout felt her cheeks fill with colour. Nicki must think she was terrible, creeping around her teacher's house uninvited, snooping on private photos of private memories.

"We're in here, Scout," Tom called.

She crept into the bedroom and found both of her teachers sitting on the bed, Nicki still in her dressing gown, leaning against Tom. Her hair was damp and curling at the tips, her feet bare like they had been in the cottage picture, only her toes were curled up too, like she was trying to stop herself crying out in pain at something. The stitches on her head were visible to Scout, raw blue marks against raw red flesh.

"I'm a mess," Nicki whispered.

Scout didn't know if she meant physically or inside. She hovered uncertainly near the doorway, feeling like an intruder. Nicki's head was against Tom's chest, they looked perfect; her heart swelled at the idea that Tom would protect Nicki like he'd always protected Scout, even if they were 'just friends'.

"You didn't get very far with getting ready, did you, hey?" Tom asked her softly, holding her closer to him.

"I was going to, then I just– I found my camera from France, there were photos from the first day, from us eating those croissants, and then the Eiffel Tower. And Lorraine's in them, and she looks happy," her voice broke and she looked up at Scout, "I'm sorry, Jodie, you shouldn't have to be here."

Jodie, not Scout. "I wanted to come."

"We all just want you to be okay, Nicki," Tom said, "We know that's going to take time, but we want to be here for you."

Nicki didn't look away from Scout, "Do you have the nightmares too?"

Scout nodded. Nicki held out her other arm and Scout ran forwards and tucked herself on Nicki's other side, the bed soft beneath her, Nicki soft beside her. Tom reached his arm round so it was touching Scout's shoulder. She realised her tears were dribbling down onto Nicki's shoulder, wiped her cheeks, embarrassed.

"Tom, will you– will you make us some drinks, please?" Nicki asked, "There's some cocoa powder in the first cupboard on the right of the oven."

"Any marshmallows?"

"Second cupboard."

He buried his head briefly in her hair and then stood up and left them alone. Nicki held Scout to her for a moment longer.

"You're a mess as well." It wasn't a question.

"School's so weird without you, Miss."

That statement made her sound like a child. There was so much she wanted to say and yet none of it would come out, it was too complicated and too painful.

"And it's weird not being there. I even miss Barry Barry; there's something seriously wrong there, isn't there?" Nicki squeezed Scout's shoulder, "Would you do me a favour?"

"What is it?"

"I just don't have the energy to– will you dry my hair?"

Scout could hear Tom whistling downstairs as he boiled the kettle. She smiled, "Only if I can curl it after."

XxXxX


End file.
